“Then fall Caesar!”, cries Brutus after he stabs the Roman great to death, in Shakespeare’s retelling of Julius Caesar’s life in his play titled the same. Brutus was a faithful friend and a patriotic Roman, so what could possibly lead him to be involved in the murder conspiracy of his dearest friend?
Somehow this incidence comes to mind each time a Pakistani terror outfit orchestrates an attack on the Indian Motherland. Divided by nationalities, the two are off-springs of one mother, yet time and again they face usurping tensions. The Gurdaspur attack of Monday resulted in the death of 10 people, of which four were Police personnel, four civilians and three terrorists. The SP of Gurdaspur, son of Late Achhar Singh, an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI), killed at the height of militancy in 1984 in Bhikhiwind, Tarn Taran area of Punjab, Baljit Singh was a brave-heart leading from the front. He lead the first batch of officers immediately after the attack, and was not equipped with any sophisticated arms or even a bulletproof vest when he fell to his death after taking a bullet to his head.
The sheer grit and determination of the officers of Gurdaspur was visible in the very manner that they took on the militants, without a care for their lives as they did their duty of defending the people of Gurdaspur from heavily armed militants, waiting for police backup to arrive with ammunition at the Dinanagar Police Station. Armed with just double barrels, SLRs and revolvers, officers like Constable Sham Sunder, SHO Rajinder Kumar Sharma, Head Constable Vaishno Dutt, Constable Jatinder and Joginder Singh held fort for 30 mins till reinforcements arrived.
The Punjab attack is an act of cowardice.
With a Nation in shock and relations between India and Pakistan on the brink of an explosive feud, the case of infiltration into India by terror outfits recognizing themselves as Pakistani is no longer a point India seems to be looking to discuss. When Caesar asked Brutus, “Et to Brute…?”, Brutus demanded he fall. Here a Nation takes blows after blows and comes back stronger each time, as was the case here. So, it’s not long before the fractured spine of Indo-Pak relations is rendered paralyzed by such events. Gurdaspur will sustain, Punjab will recover, but as a Nation, the 11 hour assault on the ill-fated day of 27th July, 2015 will be etched into Indian minds as a dark, harrowing day.
